Afghan
Afghan may refer to:
*Something of or related to Afghanistan, a country in Southern-Central Asia
*Afghans, people or citizens of Afghanistan, typically of any ethnicity
** Afghan (ethnonym), the historic term applied strictly to people of the Pas ...
physician and politician. In 2005, she was elected to the lower house of parliament as representative of
Kunduz province
Qunduz (Dari: ) is one of the 34 provinces of Afghanistan, located in the northern part of the country next to Tajikistan. The population of the province is around 1,136,677, which is mostly a tribal society; it is one of Afghanistan's most ethni ...
2010
File:2010 Events Collage New.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2010 Chile earthquake was one of the strongest recorded in history; The Eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland disrupts air travel in Europe; A scene from the opening ceremony of ...
and 2018 elections. She served as an MP until her death from cancer in 2021.
, Afghanistan. In 1987, she completed her secondary school education at Naswan High School in Kunduz. She earned a
bachelor of medicine
Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery ( la, Medicinae Baccalaureus, Baccalaureus Chirurgiae; abbreviated most commonly MBBS), is the primary medical degree awarded by medical schools in countries that follow the tradition of the United King ...
from
Kabul Medical University
Kabul Medical University (Pashto د کابل طبي پوهنتون / Dari: پوهنتون طبي کابل) formerly known as Kabul Medical Institute) is located in Kabul, Afghanistan on the campus of Kabul University. The medical institution was i ...
in 1993.
Career
For 13 years, Aziz worked in
maternal–fetal medicine
Maternal–fetal medicine (MFM), also known as perinatology, is a branch of medicine that focuses on managing health concerns of the mother and fetus prior to, during, and shortly after pregnancy.
Maternal–fetal medicine specialists are physic ...
in
Wazir Akbar Khan
Wazīr Akbar Khān (Pashto/Dari: ; 1816-1847), born Mohammad Akbar Khān () and also known as Amīr Akbar Khān (), was an Afghan prince, general, emir for a year, and finally wazir/heir apparent to Dost Mohammad Khan until his death in 1847. ...
and Malalai hospitals in
Kabul
Kabul (; ps, , ; , ) is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan. Located in the eastern half of the country, it is also a municipality, forming part of the Kabul Province; it is administratively divided into 22 municipal districts. Acco ...
. She also worked for non-governmental organizations and the
UNHCR
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is a United Nations agency mandated to aid and protect refugees, forcibly displaced communities, and stateless people, and to assist in their voluntary repatriation, local integrati ...
. In the aftermath of the 2001 Afghan War, Aziz was elected as an
independent
Independent or Independents may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups
* Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s
* Independ ...
member of parliament (MP) to the lower house of parliament, representing Kunduz province. She was part of the 2002 loya jirga. During the
Wolesi Jirga
The House of Representatives of the People, or Da Afghanistan Wolesi Jirga ( ps, دَ افغانستان ولسي جرګه), was the lower house of the bicameral National Assembly of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, alongside the upper ...
2005 election, Aziz received 4,725 votes. She was deputy chairwoman of the communications, transportation, city development, and municipalities committee. Aziz was re-elected in subsequent elections during the
Afghan Peace Jirga 2010 The Afghan President Hamid Karzai announced the holding of a consultative grand council called the Afghanistan's National Consultative Peace Jirga (NCPJ) or shortly Peace Jirga in his inauguration speech on 19 November 2009, after winning elections ...
and 2018. She was one of the first women elected to the
National Assembly
In politics, a national assembly is either a unicameral legislature, the lower house of a bicameral legislature, or both houses of a bicameral legislature together. In the English language it generally means "an assembly composed of the repre ...
after the fall of the
Taliban
The Taliban (; ps, طالبان, ṭālibān, lit=students or 'seekers'), which also refers to itself by its state (polity), state name, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a Deobandi Islamic fundamentalism, Islamic fundamentalist, m ...
.
Known for her liberal stances and advocacy of
gender equality
Gender equality, also known as sexual equality or equality of the sexes, is the state of equal ease of access to resources and opportunities regardless of gender, including economic participation and decision-making; and the state of valuing d ...
, her comments in parliament attracted controversy. As representative of
National Directorate of Security
The National Directorate of Security (NDS; ps, د ملي امنیت لوی ریاست; prs, ریاست عمومی امنیت ملی) was the national intelligence and security service of Afghanistan. The headquarters of the NDS was in Kabul, ...
after a series of coordinated Taliban attacks in 2012. She provided information to the international media during the Battle of Kunduz in 2015. She fled the city with her family due to the battle. While the city was occupied by the Taliban, she campaigned for the city's liberation to the Afghan government and international community, while drawing attention to the humanitarian situation on the ground. Aziz said that voter turnout in Kunduz for the
2019 Afghan presidential election
Presidential elections were held in Afghanistan on 28 September 2019. According to preliminary results, which runner-up Abdullah Abdullah appealed against, incumbent Ashraf Ghani was re-elected with 923,592 votes, 50.64% of the vote. After delay ...
corruption
Corruption is a form of dishonesty or a criminal offense which is undertaken by a person or an organization which is entrusted in a position of authority, in order to acquire illicit benefits or abuse power for one's personal gain. Corruption m ...
and government failures caused a shortage in
oxygen tanks
An oxygen tank is an oxygen storage vessel, which is either held under pressure in gas cylinders, or as liquid oxygen in a cryogenic storage tank.
Uses
Oxygen tanks are used to store gas for:
* medical breathing at medical facilities and at home ...
.
Personal life and death
Aziz's first language was
Dari
Dari (, , ), also known as Dari Persian (, ), is the variety of the Persian language spoken in Afghanistan. Dari is the term officially recognised and promoted since 1964 by the Afghan government for the Persian language,Lazard, G.Darī ...
and she also spoke
Pashto
Pashto (,; , ) is an Eastern Iranian language in the Indo-European language family. It is known in historical Persian literature as Afghani ().
Spoken as a native language mostly by ethnic Pashtuns, it is one of the two official languages ...
She was married to an engineer and had two daughters and two sons. Her brother was a representative in Kunduz's Ministry of the Economy. In 2020, Aziz tested positive for
COVID-19
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...
, and posted a video of her online in bed with an oxygen tube. She died of cancer on 12 March 2021, in a hospital in Switzerland.